The Enchanted Stream: Wolves of Lookout Mountain, #1

By Chynna Pace

Lookout Mountain: home of an evil witch, five werewolf sweethearts, and a creepy stream that transforms its drinker. Twilight meets Hocus Pocus with a splash of fairytale whimsy in this YA supernatural fantasy!

When Morgan Staten moves to the fairytale-themed town of Lookout Mountain, she never expects her life to turn into a modern-day version of Red Riding Hood. But when a vicious wolf attack and a mysterious stream lead to her befriending the five Wulver brothers, Morgan realizes the quaint town is harboring deadly secrets. She soon learns she's descended from a special group of witches responsible for creating—and destroying—werewolves. Not only that, but she has powers herself, if she can only learn to tap into them. But she's got two targets on her back, from the wolves who want her demise and the wolves who want her help. When an evil plot surfaces, Morgan must choose between the path of her ancestors and her newfound friendship with the wolves of Lookout Mountain, between breaking a curse and continuing it. That is, if she herself can stay alive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chynna Pace
• Release date: Feb 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201346409

Book preview

1. The Attack

Aforest is the perfect place to lose oneself in. Especially the one behind Rebecca Grant’s house.

But why had I chosen the scraggly, overgrown part of the forest to vent steam? Why hadn’t I just kept to the path? Was it because a part of me—the jagged, broken, angry part—didn’t want my surroundings to be so clear cut, so cleanly defined the way she was trying to force things? Was it because I wanted hot dog and cherry coke parties, not fancy tablecloth, roasted chicken, and vegetable dinners?

All these questions, and more, flitted through my head the minute the realization settled over me: I was lost.

Serves you right, snapped the guilty, self-loathing voice inside me, acting out the way you did.

Yes, I had acted out a bit. And yes, I wasn’t proud of it. And yes, it turned my stomach with guilt every time I remembered the way I yelled at Dad and her about how much I hated everything. And yes, the worst of it was me storming off at the end like an immature baby too cowardly to face her problems head on.

But my life was crumbling around me. I was losing my dad. I was becoming a bitter teenager, a change I had always sworn I would never let happen!

Ugh, whatever. Now was not the time for tormenting thoughts.

I cleared my head, and tried to get my bearings.

But that was easier said than done. What bearings were there even to get? Everything looked the same. Trees, thickly green and imposing, hemmed me in from all sides. They sapped the daylight out of the late afternoon air, blotted out the sun, weakened the warmth so that it felt like February, not mid October. Never had I imagined trees to be frightening, but these were. These seemed to throb with malevolence, as if trying on purpose to trap me.

Geez, Chill, Morgan. Your imagination is working overtime again.

I paused to take in a few deep breaths and readjust the backpack on my shoulders, which had turned from a nice place to store my books and science journal to ten pounds of unnecessary weight to lug around. No matter how much I tried to situate it, I couldn’t keep the straps from biting into my shoulder blades.

Finally, with a huff, I dropped the bag onto the forest floor and then plunked myself down on its hard lumpy top.

Great. Lost.

Not that Dad would miss me after the way I acted.

Okay, stop looking at me like I’m a petulant four year old, even if I may have acted like one at dinner that evening. In my defense, I was exhausted from moving, emotional from dealing with all the new changes, and Rebecca just happened to cook my least favorite meal for dinner. Cabbage rolls always got me riled up. If only Dad hadn’t fallen for her…

Don’t even ask me how they met, how a president of some massive attorney firm and all-around snoot lady could fall for a guy like Ken Staten, wearer of distressed jeans and untucked shirts, eater of messy nacho cheese chips and even messier buffalo wings, and owner of a used music and bookstore. I wouldn’t be able to explain it, even I wanted to.

It was too late now though. For whatever reason, they were in love. I could see that. It was genuine. There was no danger of a woman like her just marrying my father for money. Why would she need to? There was a chandelier in every room of the woman’s house!

I bet Dad is glad I disappeared…

Agh. The pain that erupted from that thought hurt so bad I groaned aloud.

And that was when the twig snapped behind me. When my fear heightened to a new level. When I sensed the eyes on my back.

I didn’t move at first. Dread wouldn’t let me.

But when the low growl pierced the silence, instincts took over and I had to look back.

My breath caught. My heart pounded once, then stopped moving completely.

I backed up, slid backwards on my backpack, away from the huge yellow eyes glowing in the shadows.

The thing responded to my movement, creeping out from behind a bush, and into the wan half light. Another deep-throated snarl slid through its bare teeth; the sound set my teeth chattering, every bone in my body vibrating.

But the sight of the creature was what made me scream, what activated my vocal cords without permission, sending an involuntary, bloodcurdling shriek shooting up into the air.

It was a beast of mammoth size, just slightly smaller than a horse. Its fur, coarse and tan, bristled as it stood there on all fours, staring at me staring at it. The eyes, huge and gold-colored, hypnotized me, paralyzed me. They were angry…hungry…afraid.

Afraid? Where had that nonsense come from? The only one who was afraid here was me, and for dang good reason.

A strange whining noise burst from my parted, trembling lips. I tried to back up again, but that just made the huge wolf take another step toward me. As it inched closer, my brain exploded with a thousand whizzing, panicked thoughts. Should I keep still? Run? Had anyone ever outran a hungry wolf before? Had anyone ever survived an attack from a hungry wolf before?

Stop. Don’t think like that, Morgan.

If only Dad had bought me that cell phone I asked for, then maybe I could call him and get him to rescue me.

The wolf inched closer, its eyes memorizing my every movement, even the shaky heaves of my chest. I tried not to focus on its piercing amber gaze, tried not to make it think I was challenging it. But everywhere else I placed my focus was just as intimidating: the massive, muscular legs, the glistening bared teeth, those teeth that would surely rip me to shreds…

I realized that I was going to die. There was no way this giant creature wasn’t going to kill me. But I was either going to die sitting there on the ground, limp and helpless. Or I was going to die trying to escape, to save myself. No one was coming for me. I had long since strayed from the forest path. It was up to me now.

Once that was decided, I let myself breath deeply. In, out.

Then I began to move with deliberate slowness, easing my hands along the dirt floor beneath me, positioning them to launch me to my feet. The wolf watched, but didn’t move. Its eyes, strangely intelligent, centered on me, as if wondering what move I was going to make.

Once again, that irrational, pesky thought flitted across my mind. It’s afraid of me.

But that was ridiculous. How could a monstrous wolf be afraid of the mousy girl cowering at its feet?

Maybe there were a lot of wolf hunters in this area. Maybe it thought I was going to whip out a gun or some other weapon to kill it with.

Or maybe I was dead wrong. Maybe it wasn’t scared of me at all. Maybe it was just poising for the attack, calculating the best method for killing me the fastest.

Carefully, I pushed myself off the ground, inch by inch, until I was on my feet again.

Bad move.

The wolf let out an earth-shaking growl and then charged at me. Too terrified even to produce a scream, I silently bent down, swiped up my backpack, and then threw it at the running animal with as much force as I could manage.

Without waiting to see if I struck my target, I turned and fled, wheezing as I crashed through the trees and leapt over logs and got whacked in the face by thorns and hanging branches. Though I didn’t dare look, I heard, with acute, heightened awareness, the creature bounding after me. Its paws devouring the forest floor, yet navigating it with an agility that a clumsy human like me could never live up to.

Why was I running? I could never outrun a wolf. This was stupid, hopeless even. It was idiotic to hope that I could just run and run and eventually run myself out of this forest and into safety. No, I was actually going further into the depths that swallowed me up almost as eagerly as the wolf’s snapping jaws.

All of a sudden, the cool breeze slamming into my face turned icy. There was wetness on my cheeks, tears I had no memory of shedding.

I was going to die.

I was going to be ripped apart, limb by limb, my face mauled, my skin shredded.

I was going to be devoured by this wild animal, never to see my dad again—

A screeching halt. My legs quit. My arms flailed. A slobbering muzzle, with the back of my T-shirt in its grip, yanked me backwards.

Caught.

Pain flared across the back of my skull as I struck my head on something hard—a rock, a fallen log?—on the way down. But I barely registered it, because I was trying so hard to squeeze my eyes shut and will my senses out of this place and pretend that those weren’t fifty pound paws pressing down on my ribcage.

But I couldn’t ignore the hot, foul breath blowing into my face as the mouth of the wolf drew ever nearer…

SLAM.

The sound was like a boulder crashing into a brick wall.

A harsh growl, even more vicious than before, erupted into the air. But it sounded different somehow, like it came from a separate throat, a separate set of vocal cords.

Then—a high-pitched whine, followed by scuffling.

At last, I had the sense to open my eyes.

I was stunned to find not one, but two wolves in the forest, mere feet from where I lay shuddering. One, the darkish tan one that had come after me was on the ground in the same position I was in.

The other one, with its paws pressing the tan wolf down, was smaller and covered in shaggy auburn hair the color of a crisp autumn leaf. Its eyes, which I could see glaring down at the animal in its clutches, were not beady gold, but deep-chocolate brown, a shade I thought, even in my state of distress, to be beautiful.

But wait a second. Why was this wolf fighting another of its kind, instead of joining forces with it and pouncing on me? I was supposed to be the victim here, the plump, juicy meal both of these animals would love to have.

A sudden growl. A blur of movement I barely caught.

The shaggy red wolf was the one on the ground now, pinned beneath the tan one. He wriggled, tried to get free, but the bigger wolf was stronger. The two began to scuffle, wrestling around in the dirt and pine needles. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew I should take advantage of this and get the heck out of there. But the sight froze me; I barely even breathed as I watched the fight, entranced.

But then the impossible happened, the thing to send me into motion: the big tan wolf lashed out with snapping jaws and ripped a chunk out of the smaller one’s shoulder. As fur and flesh came away, the yelp that shot into the air chilled my bones. Unaware of my lips moving, I heard myself cry out, No!

Then I clapped my hands to my mouth in horror, knowing I’d just yelled out my own death sentence.

Both wolves paused, turned to look at me.

The tan one hopped off the red one’s chest. It faced me.

Then leapt into the air.

I winced, waiting for the giant weight to crash on me, for the needle-pointed teeth to stab into my body, for the painful death to ensue.

But what actually happened was this: the hurt wolf, gushing blood from its shoulder wound, copied the other wolf and jumped. Except, not at me, but in front of me, directly in the other wolf’s path.

I realized it then.

For whatever weird, unnatural, deranged reason, this little red wolf was trying to protect me, to stop the wolf from eating me.

As the two wolves collided, another scuffle, rougher this time, commenced. Somehow the red one ended up on top again. In a head spinning moment, it turned its head to look at me, paws pushing on the squirming wolf beneath it, and it nodded.

At least, that’s how it seemed to me when it cocked its head back, gesturing to the forest path behind us.

As if to say: Run. Run!

Ignoring all the questions zooming through my head about wolves that tried to rescue me instead of eat me, I turned in the direction the shaggy red creature indicated and prayed he wouldn’t be damaged too bad by the bigger wolf.

Then I fled.

2. The Entrance

Morgan, seriously. Stop looking so wounded. You can use my messenger bag today, and we’ll stop after school to get you a new backpack and notebook.

No! It won’t be the same. All my recipes and formulas are lost.

How about we go scour that part of the woods after school and see if we can find your backpack?

"Dad! Are you kidding me? There are vicious wolves in that forest. Wolves!"

Dad was quiet. Too quiet. Quiet enough for my ears to zero in on the noise of the air conditioning system as it worked overtime, puffing cool air out of the vents to mitigate that abnormally warm morning.

I looked over at him in the driver’s side, paused as we waited in front of a red light. His teeth were chewing on his upper lip, the way they always did when he was in deep thought. Which bothered me. What was there to think about?

You don’t believe me? I asked, incredulous.

"It’s not that, Morgan. It’s just…well…it’s kind of impossible for there to be wolves in this area. We are in the mountains, yes, but it’s just not wooded enough for wolves to survive. There’s Rock City just a couple miles from here…downtown Chattanooga a little ways up. I mean, you probably just thought they were wolves. Rebecca says—"

Rebecca? I snapped. How come Rebecca gets a say in this and she wasn’t even there?

That’s the thing though. Rebecca had lots of says. The woman hated everything I loved and cherished. Literally. Enriched flour, messes in the kitchen, my chemistry set—which she called a toy that shouldn’t be left out, for safety purposes. Okay, for one—she was totally wrong. There was plenty more dangerous stuff in her house. All the glass trinkets you could cut yourself on, all the plain, salt-free food that could kill your taste buds with its blandness, and of course, the most lethal of all: her look. It was a look that just screamed disgust. You know the kind. She liked to give it to me often, when Dad’s attention was elsewhere.

Rebecca Grant didn’t like me either. Not even after I’d made her my best batch of peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, in an attempt to ‘try’, as Dad had begged me to do when they were in their dating phase. And no, I was not trying to poison her. Those cookies were delicious. But all she cared about was impressing Dad.

The light turned green. Dad eased forward, following the light stream of traffic. A brief spell of silence overtook him. Then he continued, as if I hadn’t said anything at all, Rebecca says they were probably just really big dogs.

Dad, I swear—

"Please, Morgan. Just try to be reasonable. I’ll buy you a new notebook. Everything will be fine."

Yeah, right.

I sat back, shaking my head. How could he say that? How could he just gloss over the fact that I had lost my most valuable possession and nearly been eaten?

Oh, look, he said, putting on that same fake smile and cheery voice he’d given me just before he revealed the ‘good’ news: that he and Rebecca were getting married. That had been traumatic, but the thing he pointed out now wasn’t much less worse.

Up ahead, on our right, loomed the building that would virtually be my new home and prison all at once. It was an awful, menacing sight: the long brick structure, the jam-packed parking lot, the green quad on which milled fancy kids in preppy outfits.

Yet the place tried to disguise its true identity by giving itself a pretty name: Fairyland High School. It wasn’t a surprise, considering my new home was on Red Riding Hood Trail between Elfin Road and Pied Piper Street.

Apparently, Lookout Mountain was themed. No, not fortune-themed, as you would expect from all the huge houses. It was fairytale-inspired. As in, actual fairytales. It was a bizarre combination of cutesy and creepy, like a porcelain doll that’s supposed to be all sweet and doll-like, but actually just ends up being prime material for a horror movie. What with Rock City Gardens, an fairy-centric tourist trap, being just a few blocks away, everything in the vicinity followed the same whimsical pattern.

It might have been quaint and charming, had I not been in this town against my will, or about to start a new school two months into the semester. Even as I was aware of the beauty that was all around me, the mountains, the trees, the quaint neighborhoods, all I could think about was how devastated I was that all this had happened.

But that’s the way it was, and there was no way of escaping it now.

You never know what may happen, Dad said, as he pulled into a space in the crowded parking lot. You might end up liking this place.

I doubted that. Doubted it highly. My science journal was lost, I was living in a strange place with a strange new step-mom, I’d just been attacked and rescued by gargantuan wolves, and now I was doomed to endure hundreds of curious, critical stares that would surely be picking the new girl apart piece by piece.

But all I could do at this point was take it. Put one foot in front of the other, and face what lay ahead.

* * *

Once inside the brightly lit front lobby, it took no time to find the main office. The very first room I saw—which appeared stylishly on my right, with its sleek glass windows and doors, allowing a first-rate view of the hallway happenings and the students that were part of them—had a big sign on its door that proclaimed: FHS ADMINISTRATION.

Not keen on allowing the teenage masses a lengthy look at me, I made a beeline for the door and tumbled through it like the room beyond was an island of safety.

I immediately started sweating the moment I entered. The room felt like a sauna compared to the rest of the school. Everywhere I cast my eyes, I found another space heater, glowing orange from a corner on the floor. The culprits for this heinous act were easy to find: three little old ladies manning the long counter, shivering in thick cardigans and sweaters. Fall had barely started—and in Georgia, that meant there was still about a month of unofficial summer weather left—and yet these women were acting like Christmas was on the horizon.

Morning, honey! You new here?

The voice came from the lady nearest me, the one sitting upright with her arms folded on the desk and her head lifted in attentive concern. The other two ladies were bent and hunched over computers, typing at an antiquated speed while the blue light reflected off their glasses and made their eyes look like ghost-beams.

Um, yeah. Hi. I smiled as I approached the counter, trying to mask my nerves behind politeness.

The name on the aluminum tag pinned to her casual T-shirt read Diane, and she was considerably younger than the other two, late forties I suspected. Her hair, pulled into one long braid that hung over her left shoulder, was a pretty combination of brown and white—like chestnuts brushed with snow. The deep blue eyes that peered out at me were full of nothing but warmth and gentleness.

My shoulders relaxed in the face of her friendly demeanor.

I’m Morgan Staten, I added.

Diane eased her hands off the countertop, switched them to her keyboard. As her fingertips fled across the keys, she muttered my name to herself slowly, Morgan…Staten… Then she asked, with a questioning glance up at me, Sophomore, right?

I nodded. Yes, ma’am.

Her eyes lit up as she stared at the screen. Oh, that’s right! Your transcripts came on Friday. You’re the model student who used to attend GirlsPreparatory School, right? The science whiz?

My chest gave a lurch of wistfulness at the mention of my old school. That’s right.

"Here in the office, we were all super impressed to see that. Excellent student, 4.0 grade point average, specializing in chemistry…and GPS is a wonderful school for the sciences. What made you leave that for Fairyland?"

The inflection in her voice surprised me. She said it like my old school was an Ivy League and Fairyland High School was some kind of bumpkin community college.

With maybe a little too much honesty, I answered, "Well, it definitely wasn’t my choice. But my dad remarried and…and his new wife lives here in Lookout Mountain. She wanted us to move in with her, and GPS is out of the way on my dad’s route to work, so…" Realizing I was rambling, I let my sentence trail off. Halfheartedly, Diane nodded with her eyes on the computer screen, still typing away.

A moment later, the hum of a machine sounded from somewhere behind the desk. Diane got up, disappeared for a few seconds, then came back with a fresh sheet of printed paper, which she passed me over the counter.

Here’s your schedule, sweetie, she said.

I glanced at it briefly, not registering any words, before looking up to smile gratefully at her. Thank you.

She rested her arms on the counter again and said, I know it’s not what you’re used to, but our little school’s alright. I think you’ll like it here just fine, Morgan, just fine.

Her kind, grandmotherly aura was encouraging, and made me forget my troubles momentarily. I murmured my thanks one more time, and then strode from the office into the halls beyond.

There, the kind woman’s spell wore off, and I found myself in a crowd of strangers, my stomach even more nervous than before.

For the most part, none of the passing students paid me any mind. Chatting and laughing with their friends, they headed toward their first classes of the day, oblivious. Still, I was compelled to step out of the main pathway and stick to the walls as I consulted my schedule.

My first class of the morning was Honors Biology in Lab A, the only one of my classes, besides Honors English, that was advanced. No surprise—I had never excelled in anything other than the sciences. And though most considered English a language art, I’d always thought it to be another form of science—all the rules of composition, the formula behind stringing words together to form sentences, either creatively or technically. It came natural to me, but of course, not nearly as much as Biology would. Starting at eight-fifteen, it gave me only seven minutes to navigate the halls and find the classroom. I breathed in deep and started forward for a quick head start.

But a second later I was stopped in my tracks by the explosion of noise.

First, the music. A nineties boy band song blasted from a loudspeaker, turning the school hallways into a pumping club scene. On top of that, a harsh sound scraped against my ears, like that of a hundred skateboards grating across the linoleum floors.

Like the majority of people in the hall, I turned to look over my shoulder at the commotion.

That was when I saw them.

The one at the head of the group was the source of the music. He carried a Sony boombox on his shoulder, like a scene from old eighties footage of hip-hop lovers and urban streets. The guy just behind him was about the same height, seemed about the same age. But the two bringing up the rear were shorter, younger.

Yet it was hard to decipher anything more about them, because all four of them wore Heelys on their feet—which explained the skateboard sound—and were flying too fast for me to catch anything but a blurry, whizzing quartet.

That is, until I found myself in the direct path of the last guy in the group.

Look out! he shouted over the roaring wheels and booming music.

He was swerving this way and that like a drunk driver, clearly a newbie at the roller shoes. As he came closer, I only had time to catch a glimpse of his swollen, beat-up face and the bandage peeking out of his T-shirt sleeve before I was nearly ran over. It was a narrow miss; I just managed to leap out of the way in time. Then the boy was zooming away, toward his friends, toward the fading music.

But he was barely a yard away before he looked over his shoulder at me. I expected an apology to come out of his mouth. But instead he just gave me a strange look, a look that either said he thought I should be the one apologizing, or he’d seen me before. His eyebrows scrunched together over his purple-puffy eyes, and his lips parted as if he wanted to say something to me.

He didn’t though. The look only lasted a couple seconds, then he faced forward again and whizzed away and out of sight.

The second time in two days I’d nearly been killed.

I sighed and headed to class.

3. The Wulvers

The lab was a large room on the second floor that took up nearly two classrooms worth of space. Almost all the black laminate-topped tables were full already, each taken up with two students, which meant I would be working with a partner. Yay.

It also meant that I got the brunt of everyone’s stares when I walked in.

Inevitably, I glanced up at the tables and found the girls in their cropped cardigans and sequined tank tops scrutinizing my cargo pants and long sleeve tee. But I also caught sight of a girl with whom I guessed I might have something in common. She sat alone at one of the middle tables. Right off the bat, she stood out in her red beanie and shaggy cut blond hair. Her eyes glimmered softly when I looked at her; instead of a dissecting stare, she gave me a friendly smile, which instantly made my chest feel a fraction lighter. Maybe I would end up having at least one friend at Fairyland High. And unlike the others, she didn’t look like a fairy herself. Thank goodness.

Ah, welcome! The bushy-haired man, who had been too busy scribbling on the whiteboard to notice my arrival, turned suddenly and greeted me with a wide smile. You must be Miss Staten!

Yes, sir, I said, fidgeting with the strap on my dad’s messenger bag.

As if the situation wasn’t horribly awkward enough, everyone in the class chose that moment to descend into the thickest silence of all time. The normal pre-class-start din in which everyone chatted and giggled with their friends had been going strong—up until I spoke. Now, I not only had all of their eyes focused on me, but their ears as well. It was so quiet you could hear my nervous breathing. I was grateful when the teacher started shuffling papers on his desk, for the simple reason that the sound masked my abnormal heartbeat.

I’m Mr. Lassiter, he said as he handed me two sheets. That there is your syllabus, to be brought back signed by a parent, and the worksheet for the class project we’ll be starting today. Now, here’s your book. You can take any empty seat you wish.

I thanked him, then turned to face the room. The only empty seat was at the table with the beanie girl, but that worked out fine. She would’ve been my first choice anyway.

As I headed that way, I kept my eyes focused on my target table, avoiding all the pairs of eyes following me. Relief swept through me when I finally got there. Seeing that everyone else in the room had their books on their tables, I set mine down, then bent down to place my bag on the floor under my stool.

Thankfully, the noise returned at that moment. Chatter resumed as if it had never stopped. I was momentarily forgotten.

When I straightened up, the beanie girl was looking at me. I smiled at her.

Hi, I muttered, then added a second later, I’m Morgan.

I’m Delania—but I go by Laney.

I nodded, unsure what to say now, and wishing my journal wasn’t lost somewhere in a wolf-infested forest so I could distract myself with a new recipe idea.

"No offense, but you look extremely uncomfortable. Kinda like how I did when I first moved to Lookout Mountain a couple years ago."

Turning to face her directly, I asked, You moved here too?

Her eyes, at first glance, had seemed brown. But they were actually an interesting shade of hazel with hints of amber. She wore stovepipe pants that looked like some I had in my own closet—except camo ones instead of gray—and a hardcore band tee that instantly classified her as a punk chick. My kinda seat partner.

Yeah, from Atlanta, she explained. "My dad’s company transferred him to the division in ‘Nooga when I was twelve. I had